fear

In order to keep learning and growing, we need to expand our comfort zone. Everybody knows that, right?

But then I came across this article that suggests that stepping beyond our comfort zone can not only be hard work but it can also be very uncomfortable, at least until we master whatever we wanted to learn.

That’s what it’s usually like to climb our learning curve, be it learning to drive, learning a new language or learning how to create better relationships.

The more we want something, the more we’re likely to be determined to succeed. And that’s

I get upset when I read an obituary about some well-known personality who died of some lingering illness who, that obituary says, had accepted their situation and never complained. The tone is always one of admiration.

Apparently, they keep their pain and suffering to themselves because they don’t want to burden the people they love. Sounds

As a life coach I have all kinds of people coming to me but I noticed lately that I have begun to attract an increasing number of people in financial difficulties an area I’m familiar with, both personally and professionally.

Some of my clients, for example, have heard rumours of redundancy and have scared themselves into a standstill, unable to think.

"What on earth am I going to do!"

Most of them are in their late forties or early fifties – a difficult age when you are employed and perhaps about to lose your job.Whether we like it or not, we live in an ageist society.

Most people define courage as the absence of fear yet nothing could be further from the truth. When I was younger, my life was dominated by all kinds of fears which would hold me back in all areas of my life. Not long ago, I wrote a blog called ‘Feel the fear and do it … Read more

Most people define courage as the absence of fear yet nothing could be further from the truth. When I was younger, my life was dominated by all kinds of fears which would hold me back in all areas of my life. Not long ago, I wrote a blog called ‘Feel the fear and do it … Read more

There’s a general belief that being courageous is the absence of fear. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my younger days, I used to allow fear to hold me back. Since then I worked with a life coach who helped me transform my life.

Not long ago I wrote a blog called ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway – really?’ I went on to share the two biggest examples of ‘going for it’ in my life: leaving my marriage of 37 years and leaving my well paid job at the Institute of Directors.

A while back I posted a number of blogs introducing the concept of the Gremlin (your inner critic) and suggested ways to manage it.

I’ve been familiar with my Gremlin for as long as I remember, even when I didn’t have name for it. I even commented how important it was to be aware of how it works because it affects the quality of our life like nothing else can.

Probably the most important point I made was that, even when we learn to master it, we will always have to watch out because it will never be defeated.

When I turned 60 I had to face the fact that I was heading towards retirement, something I had never even considered. I probably was in denial and only came out of it because of a message from the HR department. I had been in my job for the last 8 years. I really enjoyed the work and I was well paid. Also, I had a really good relationship with my colleagues – all of which I knew I would lose once I actually retired. The HR message served to put the whole issue right in front of my face. I had nowhere to hide.

I was really feeling unsettled about the whole idea – losing my colleagues, losing my purpose, losing my routine. Also, there was the question of structure. I imagined

The very mention of ‘the unseen world’ is likely to conjure up images of the supernatural or metaphysical.

My observation – if I may call it that – of the unseen world lies much closer to home. In fact, it lies within us – unseen worlds such as ‘love’, ‘truth’, ‘integrity’, ‘kindness’, ‘thoughtfulness’, are all unseen until we choose to express them. The same, of course, applies to the other, dark, unseen world such as ‘hate’, ‘fear’, ‘anger’, and so on. As humans, we have the capacity to experience and manifest both kinds of unseen worlds, the light and the dark.

I was brought up to always be friendly, agreeable, charming and cheerful. My parents believed that my very survival depended on people liking me and being a people pleaser was, clearly, the way to be accepted, acceptable and liked.

I grew up, got married and over the years I developed a variety of friendships of varying degrees of superficiality.

I worked as hard as I could at all these relationships. One of the approaches I had developed was to avoid conflict at all cost. I actually believed that conflict signified the end of a relationship, that if I ever told someone how I really felt, they would walk away and I’d be alone – forever. This “walking away” might be physical or psychological.